Tag Archives: Characters

Plot #3

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Today’s topic is my third novel, which like Harry Potter and the Giant Prehistoric Chicken, is a combo of 2 different ideas. 

Originally I was going to write about an author who keeps getting derailed from writing their novel while trying to get fired from their job.  There was the shiny new idea of writing a sequel to my 2006 novel.  I realized that I could combine the two rather easily because my female main character Chloe (from my 2006 nano) wants to be a bestselling author, and could use some extra time to write. 

Weird things are definitely going to happen to keep her from writing, and there will be all kinds of work drama for her as well.  She can’t quit her job because she’s a full-time student, and she’s completely on her own, with no family to help her out.  Her dad’s not in the picture and her mom and grandparents died in a car crash.  Her aunts and uncles are out of the picture because they kicked her out of her childhood home.  She does have a few friends who would have no problem helping her out and supporting her, but she doesn’t want to be a burden on them, so she’s feeling really trapped.

Chloe has a lot of trust issues, which stemmed from a multitude of family issues.  Her mom worked a minimum wage job, and had some emotional issues.  She had an abusive aunt and an abusive uncle (and by the way, they aren’t married to each other), her other aunt and uncle could care less about Chloe, and her two cousins were spoiled brats who lived to make Chloe suffer. 

She still has a lot of issues to work through this time around, and it’ll be more of a struggle for her as she tries to balance things.  It won’t be as depressing as 2006, but there will definitely be a sense of darkness lurking in the background.  Things haven’t been easy for her, and that won’t change for this novel either.  She is pretty tough, so she’ll be okay.

Plot #2- Harry Potter and the Giant Prehistoric Chicken

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This idea will no doubt be the most funny/amusing of the 3 novels I’m going to write this year.  The giant prehistoric chicken is a great story; it is also a bit of an inside joke, so I won’t mention that particular story here. 

So how did I come up with Harry Potter and the Giant Prehistoric Chicken?  I was leaning towards doing something involving harry potter.  And I was also trying to figure out how to work the giant prehistoric chicken into my novels, when I realized that I could write about Harry Potter and the Giant Prehistoric Chicken.  

I’ve decided to write an alternate 5th year- ignoring books 6 and 7, and keeping some elements of book 5.  Luna will bring up the prehistoric chicken- she’s such a quirky character, and has a lot of…interesting theories, to say the least, so she is the perfect person to bring up a giant prehistoric chicken.  I’m still debating on whether to use Professor Umbridge as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, or if I want to bring in something new.  I know for sure the giant prehistoric chicken  is the secret weapon, and that it needs to be resurrected.  I also know is that the gods/goddesses of the underworld will play a role in resurrecting the prehistoric chicken.

That pretty much sums up this novel.  I haven’t done too much planning for it, mainly because it’s based off of something already written, there’s no need to plan characters, or do any world-building.  And I think I may be trying to make up for all of the research I’ve done with Plot 1.  Balance is pretty important.

Plot #1

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My first plot for this year’s noveling attempt is about a 16-year-old girl named Kiora.  My inspiration for the idea came from a couple different sources.  I happened to catch 1st Daughter on TV, and my imagination sprang into action.  It also reminded me of one of last year’s novels, so I started coming up with characters and possible reasons as to why a 16-year-old girl would need secret service protection.  The idea has changed a lot since my coming up with my original notes. 

I had originally planned on them falling in love, but promptly put that on the backburner once I realized there would be a huge age gap between them.  I did a rough timeline of the career path of a Secret Service special agent, and assuming he went right from college to the secret service, I placed him at around 29-30.  13-14 years is quite a big difference.  And yes, I could make her older.  I could even make him younger, but at most a couple years.  I decided not to change up their ages at this point because I definitely want their age difference to be a major source of conflict/tension throughout the novel.  For now, I’ve decided to go for a more one-sided thing.  She has a crush on him, thinks he’s cute, will do whatever he says because of her crush.  And as for Dustin, he resents her because he’d rather be protecting the president instead of some 16-year-old girl. 

Going back to my original idea, I had come up with the idea of her being a niece of the president, but slowly the idea morphed into her being the daughter of a cabinet member.  I’m leaning towards the idea of threats towards the cabinet and their families.

I still need to work out some details on her family.  Her family tree is seen below.  Her mom died when she was a baby, her aunt Arabella has spent a lot of time in and out of psych wards, and her dad doesn’t get along with his sisters, so she has no connections to her other two aunts.  Her grandparents aren’t in the picture, since 3 have died before the story starts, and the opening scene is Poppy’s funeral.  Poppy will most likely be (at the very least) mentioned, since she helped Blake raise Kiora.  Arabella may be mentioned as well.

        

As far as the other characters go, there’s Dustin (who is one of the special agents assigned to kiora), the president, the 1st lady, and their three children.  I’ll probably add a few other minor characters as well, but that still needs to be determined. 

I have character profiles for each of the characters above, although some are much more in-depth than others.  It pretty much amounts to Kiora and Dustin having a more complete profile than anyone else, but I’m pretty sure I can come up with likes and dislikes for everyone. 

I have a pretty decent collection of notes and websites that I will (hopefully) refer to during November if I need a bit of research.  I’m not aiming for accuracy right now, especially since most of what I want to know is stuff I probably won’t be able to find out anyway.  Wikipedia has been a really good starting point for research…everything else can wait until editing starts.

I think that pretty much sums up this novel.  As November progresses, I’ll probably post random tidbits about my characters, and some of the more interesting things I’ve come across during my research.